Re-imagining Resilience: A Practice

Illustration by Cyrah Dardas

“Like a small creature and its shell, we are born with resilience. It comes from within us and grows in us throughout our life. Our resiliency is uniquely our own. It can never be lost or taken and there will always be enough.”

- Cyrah Dardas, PIE Teaching Artist

COVID-19 has more implications for our education system -- and our lives -- seemingly every minute. In response, we’re leaning into our mission to support and inspire individual and collective processing. PIE is taking a moment to feel, to question and to reimagine. We’re observing this pause as an opportunity to connect with ourselves and others, to truly feel our universal kinship. As such, our team has created some tools for revisiting the concept of resilience in this unprecedented time of uncertainty. We invite you to join us in using these tools to cultivate a practice.

“Resilience is our ability to connect and cultivate our innate aliveness.”

— Alta Starr

resilience

A vital component of the Rida Institute is reflecting and planning around resilience.  We are mindful of its association with ideas like grit and how it can often be framed to make marginalized people responsible for their own oppression. To re-imagine the way we practice resilience, we glean insight from Alta Starr, a writer, organizer and lead teacher at Generative Somatics.

Her definition, “Resilience is our ability to connect and cultivate our innate aliveness,” reminds us that it’s something we have within ourselves and asks us to move beyond the idea of resilience as just survival.  It invites us to tap into what makes us feel alive.

a practice

Below is a collection of tools for supporting your resilience practice. We made it for you, your students, colleagues and loved ones. Adapt it, reflect on it and document (maybe creatively) what comes up.

Join us as we read a collective poem as an opening, grounding practice: 

Explore resilience with our video overview and zine:

Produced by Nate Mullen

Designed by Cyrah Dardas

Remember: We are in a particularly overwhelming and sensitive time. Give yourself grace and permission with this practice. What feels right for you at this time is right.

PIE Team on Resilience

Listen as Cyrah, Siobhan, Nate and Erin respond to what makes them feel creativity, awe, hope & love:

References

Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity  | Nick Cave | “To Be Whole”

Humanizing this Moment

“This being human is a guest house.” - Jellaludin Rumi

Dear PIE Community, 

Amid all that is rapidly changing with the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re taking time to pause and pivot. We are considering how best to show up in (virtual) space for each other and our community. And we’re remembering our Rida framework, which begins with focusing on the context within and outside learning spaces.

This crisis demands that we stop to process and adapt to our current context. As such, we are: 

• Working remotely and practicing social distancing until further notice. 

• Collaborating with our partners on supporting families, students and educators.

• Pausing all programming in schools and after school spaces.

During this time of uncertainty, it's easy (and human) to panic and lose sight of hope. Now that there is so much we can’t predict, we can focus on how we feel. This transition is hard for many, including all of us at PIE. We have felt grief, frustration, sadness and hopelessness. We have also felt gratitude for the presence and work of those around us, so we take this time to embrace and focus on our shared humanity. 

We continue to practice radical hope and look for joy, and we support you in doing the same. To start, check out a few resources below - and there’s more where these come from, so stay tuned.

Lastly, we invite you to pause and embrace being human with us as we read one of our favorite gems together, Rumi’s “The Guest House.”

If you think of anything to share, ask or affirm as we adapt and embrace this change, you can find us at pie@alliedmedia.org.

With love, 

The PIE Team

PIE 2019: New Spaces, New Faces

It has been a transformative 2019 for PIE. A year ago, we set intentions around our leadership transition and doubling down on our commitment to grow through relationships. Guided by those intentions, 2019 has been full of creative programming, building new muscles and embracing change. This year has been a reminder that our strength is fueled by the people and partners that make up PIE.

New Work with Our Woes

We’ve continued to adapt the pop culture “working on excellence” or Woe concept to this work by partnering with some of our favorite people in education to create more youth-led media and tell our stories nationally.  In a collaboration with MiStudents Dream and 482Forward, we presented at the Free Minds Free People Conference in the Twin Cities and made local connections in faraway places. We also worked with 482Forward on their first ever youth-led conference in the spring and with Youth Leaders on a participatory action research project over the summer. Look out for their upcoming media project in early 2020 which documents their process and findings from exploring the question, “What makes school inhumane?”

Evolving Our Programs

The Rida Institute was fire this year, with alumni returning to share their stories of incorporating humanizing practices into their learning spaces. During the summer intensive, alumni also gathered with the newer Rida participants over pizza in Southwest Detroit.

This spring, we wrapped up the 2018/19 Artist-in-Residency program, and this was our first year diving into a single theme with each media project.  We focused on the theme of school lunch, and we did so within new classrooms and a more non-traditional learning space with Alternatives For Girls. 

Connective Storytelling

Last year, we built a team of communications and graphics support to enliven the stories we tell about PIE’s work and community. This year, we’ve refined and diversified our communications, experimenting with multi-media blog posts and merging social media with fundraising on #GivingTuesday.  Your shoutouts, kudos, generosity and continued engagement have affirmed our efforts and made us feel so seen. Thank you. We can’t wait to level up once again in 2020 with dynamic content that connects you to our work.

Squad Goals

Lastly, we expanded and reshaped PIE’s leadership! We brought on a new director and adjusted leadership roles that will position us to achieve our most ambitious goals. We are overwhelmed by the continued support and critical friendship that have kept us sharp and guided us through this process. As such, we’re closing out 2019 with an advisory board retreat; creating this valuable space to collectively set intentions for the years to come. 

2020: Let’s get it 

Wow, it’s hard to believe a new decade is approaching, but with our community and leadership team, PIE is ready for 2020.  We loved this year’s expanded partnerships with our faves, and we look forward to diving in again with WOEs new and old. Of course, we are geeked to reunite with global media justice homies during the return of our beloved Allied Media Conference! And as we gather all our research and learnings from programming in years past, we’re looking ahead to media project releases and collaborative content no one will want to miss (don’t worry, we’ll keep you in the loop). 

PIE’s mission to humanize schooling is powered by connection. Our resolution to grow through relationships is still so resonant today as we partner with educators, young people, artists and communities make space for innovation, co-creation and discovery. 

Yours in partnership, 

The PIE team